“Flowers are such an emotive and powerful gift that we’ve found recipients feel even more connected to the sender once they’ve created their bouquet and shared [photos of] it with them,” says Aron Gelbard, CEO and co-founder of Bloom & Wild, a startup that sends flowers in the post.

Founded in 2013, Gelbard’s company is helping pioneer a novel way to deliver and receive floral gifts. Bouquets of freshly cut flowers are carefully hand-packaged into boxes that are slim and flat enough to fit through any standard-sized letterbox, with protective netting added to the more delicate heads to ensure that petals arrive in as perfect a condition as possible. The flowers are sent in bud, which reduces the chanceof damage in transit and ensures that bouquets will stay fresh for longer.

A blossoming industry

Bloom & Wild is one of a number of startups helping to transform the flower industry – worth £2.2bn annually in the UK alone – and getting investors buzzing around them. To date, Gelbard and his team have raised more than £7m in funding.